you gotta love this hairy city of books

Another week, a new blog to read - what fun. Linh Dinh describes her travels around the States in a recent tour, here on Harriet, the Poetry Foundation blog.

Antipodean SF#126 is now available, link via HorrorScope. TEN fabulous original science-fiction, fantasy, or horror mini-stories of about 500 words each that will entertain, yet won't take hours to read.

She's a famous librarian who writes like a dream, she was here very recently (I could not really justify the outrageous price of the seminar without a current job), and she loved the joint. Of Melbourne, K.G. Schneider, the Free Range Librarian, says:

'Melbourne is a lovely city about as old as San Francisco, with similar Gold Rush origins. It’s the first city I’ve been in for a long time that felt truly sui generis.

Some old cities feel like a set piece, some have had their souls rebuilt into chilly commercial canyons, but Melbourne has kept a lot of character (not without proactive help from its citizens). From the Vic Market to the funky little cafes in alleys, Melbourne resists being bottled. Sydney is beautiful and tidier, but Melbourne has broader shoulders and a way of tossing its hair that says, “I’ve been through a lot.”'(And yes, I've cut the links to her photos there, but you can see them from her site.)